trace elements/iodine?

[spamreefnew]

i have been having a problem with my mushroom corals bleaching and disappearing over the last year after testing my water over and over and having it tested over and over i am at a loss. and i know its not the lights because the shrooms are all scattered and the bulbs have been changed before and after this. and other corals are fine. now some of the LFS's have told me to add "trace elements and or iodine" . most say this is a NO-NO ,,,,,so what gives? do certain corals need iodine/trace?????

 

[The Ng Thing]

I was always told don't dose what you can't test for. Unfortunately Iodine (from what I was told) is difficult to test for and sometimes the test kits are inaccurate. Iodine is the only exception I have made to that rule and because of that I dose it conservatively.

The only reason I've dosed Iodine was for a toadstool which was collapsed over. It was growing for a while then the stem just collapsed to one side. I couldn't find any documentation about it at the time and I had never dosed anything before. The recommendation came from a trusted LFS where the owner suggested an iodine deficiency in my tank. The Iodine worked but I don't dose it regularly, because the same source suggested the inaccuracy of the Iodine tests.

As far as "trace elements" depending on what you have (corals) you should only need to dose things to maintain calcium and alkalinity (maybe even a pH buffer). If you already dose something for those, I would treat "trace elements" as nothing more then special RO water. Alot of the time the tiny amounts of "trace elements" can be found in a high quality salt mix you use for water changes.

 

[Jocko]

When you say over the last year, does that include back in the winter and early spring? If the losses were primarily over the last few months, then I'd ask how you tank temp has been doing.

 

[spamreefnew]

its been a full year or more. temp never swings. plus i have central AC

 

[The Ng Thing]

Can you get a picture of them? Maybe something is nibbling on them at night and they are right outside of the nibblers cave?

Assuming water quality is consistent, not just good when you test it but good all the time, it's probably a nibbler or surrounding something thats agitating them.

It's funny cause my mushrooms are the ones that cause the problems for everything else in my tank.

 

[spamreefnew]

if it is something eating them its something too small to see with the naked eye.....i have looked at night. i have tested the water at all times of day and it always seems to be stable....and remember its just the mushrooms,,more dificult corals are fine?

 

[The Ng Thing]

if it is something eating them its something too small to see with the naked eye

Not necessarily but still pic is worth a 1000 words

 

[spamreefnew]

i dont know how to load a pic,,not that computer savy...give me some instructions and i'l try

 

[wrassefan]

what kind of flow and lighting do you have? What is the salinity at? Flow? I've kept mushrooms with extremely low light in a corner of a tank with med/low flow. What size tank? Need some specs and a baseline of your tank parameters.

 

[JohnK]

I was wondering about light as well. Shrooms usually don't like all that much of it.

I have been told to randomly dose iodine for various things before too, but I take that advice with several grains of salt. Iodine in particular can be very harmful of overdosed. Personally, I would do several sizable water changes to restore levels before considering dosing blindly (without reliable tests to monitor levels). In the end, regular water changes are cheaper, easier, and more effective than a whole closet full of Kent, brightwell, or whatever brand additives.

 

[spamreefnew]

Here are some pictures of the mushrooms. Please take a look and see if you've seen anything like this before. Once again, all water perameters are perfect and the mushrooms are in several different spots in the aquarium so they all receive different amounts of light and flow. Bulbs are new.

 

[JohnK]

Those shrooms do look pretty bleached. It's hard to tell in the tank shot, where/how high are they located?

Also, what kind of light, what wattage, and what kind of bulb(s)? From the pic I'm guessing that's MH and it might be too much for the shrooms unless they are in indirect light?

 

[spamreefnew]

they are pretty low about 2/3 down. others that died wear much closer to top of tank. now that you mention it.....a lot of the shrooms that are sitting on the bottom look better than the ones in the pictures. they are receding from top to bottom. what could this mean? i did switch from 10,000k to 20,000k lamps about a year ago......... hummm??? but then again other corals responded well and 20k should put out less par than 10k no?

 

[spamreefnew]

jimmy- MH light 2x 150 watt 20k plusrites oddyseea ballast and 2 65 watt pc on quality electronic ballast

 

[JohnK]

You have pretty strong light. Shrooms like mild light. I would move them to near the bottom and or shaded spots.

 

[spamreefnew]

yea i'm gonna try that. some can't be moved tho,,,do ya think i could just run my powercompacts for a week? do mushrooms recover quickly enough for me to be able to tell before other corals suffer?